Theological Musings on Palm Sunday and Holy Week

 Palm Sunday sets the stage for the most magnificent Theo-drama found in the liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Great Easter Vigil.

In the Palm Sunday Service, we are struck with Jesus riding the colt and people honoring the king of kings.  The image depicts God is with us, among us and in solidarity with us.  This passage certainly gives us enough to reflect on, but it does not stop there.

The transition in the Palm Sunday liturgy goes from a celebrations into the Passion--a deep sense of remorse, of emptiness.  Only after the Son of God gets wrongly convicted as a criminal and crucified, we begin to understand how God is not only with us, but God is for us.  God is the only one who can truly bring life and our true purpose through the frightening and exposing reality of death.  God by taking on the form of our frail humanness banishes our sins so that we can continue our love relationship with God now and within God's Kindgom. 

If you think the Palm Sunday celebration is intense, you should feel that way.  It sets us up to dig deeper into the mystery of the holy foot washing and the institution of the Eucharist, the experience of the emptiness of the tomb of Christ and rejoicing in the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ in his raising from the dead in the "Great Easter Vigil!"  God is with us again and has been duly and justly glorified in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord who won for us won for us a seat at the heavenly banquet!  How glorious and happy day that is for us!

The challenge is letting go of the things, feelings and pride that obstruct us from entering  into that place of intense prayer, contemplation and mystical experience with God.  We need to witness and to testify to what Jesus really has done for us, but we only know what he has done for us by going into the tomb of the dead and rise to new life in our baptism.  If we embrace the mission Jesus, even to the cross and tomb, and learn from it, we will begin to embrace the change and joy we have become in our faith and in our baptismal calling with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!

I hope to see the majority of you at our Easter Vigil since it is the summit of all our celebrations in the Church year.  There is no greater feast!

God's blessings of contemplation and joy!

Rev. Billy Isenor

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